Goodbye the Night
by heartsn'minds
Summary: Perhaps that is her greatest folly, she ponders, that she is able to understand the dark hybrid's mind. And why should she not? She is, after all, his guiding light. Klaus/Caroline drabble.


A light rain falls outside Caroline's window, its gentle staccato beat somehow acting as a selcouth lullaby, caressing her to sleep in its soft wake. The gray skies of Virginia are hard to ignore during the cold days of spring and its during these very moments, when she's trying to study (but to no avail) and when Elena is gone to visit Damon, that she feels the irrepressible creep of loneliness falling unto her shoulders again. She feels the strain of struggling to maintain a carefully crafted facade, in trying to keep herself a human vying to experience life as if she only had one shot when in reality, she has a million hundred to go.

She can screw up all she wants now because there's always time to make it up.

And it's that thought that terrifies her.

Biting open a neon pink highlighter, Caroline slowly underlines passages in her French History textbook as her own mind wanders off elsewhere. Didn't Katherine also have an eternity to make up for all the sins she'd fallen into? Didn't Katherine have an eternity to search for redemption? Oh how Katherine tried to find salvation in her dying moments but when does the weight of sin become too heavy to bear? When does the cross break and you find yourself irredeemable and forever condemned to being the monster portrayed in storybooks?

Caroline hates the cliche of it all but the thought never fades from - it always lingers. When does redemption fall out of reach? Is it when you have lived for too long and indulged too much that you find all your purity lost, blown away in the wind when you weren't looking? Or perhaps your wings are plucked when you give up the hope of ever using them again. Caroline still has hers, slightly tarnished and in need of a good brushing, but her wings are there though angel she is not.

Never has been.

Never will be.

But she has a goodness in her heart, a kind, ebullient light shining within her that makes her understand those around her. She doesn't forgive as easily as Elena used to because she is not a saint but then again, would a saint with all it's heavenly prestige ever be able to understand the damned mind of a demon?

Would a saint ever be able to realize that no one is born truly evil but it's the vile world that molds them into being what they are? That evil is a word bestowed upon no human but rather, a cruel misunderstanding shrouded by self loathing and hatred that in the end, the demon himself parades around in his cloak of indifference and hatred, hoping to be seen in all his demonic glory. No man is every truly lost, Caroline believes, unless all hope has been snuffed out and all faith gone.

However, if there is but a single wisp of _trust _and _faith _and _belief _then nothing is every truly gone. Caroline has faith in that. She believes in it.

She thrives on it.

And it's in these quiet little moments when she's isolated in her own bubble does she willingly allow her mind to correlate these musings to a blue eyed Original hybrid. Only then does she remember the gentleness of his touch and fierce passion of his lips. Only now does Caroline wonder how he is in New Orleans, the sights he's seeing, the foods he's tasting (if he ever has time for those small luxuries).

She wonders about Rebekah and Elijah and if they are standing by him, spurring him on. She wonders if Elijah is truly as noble as Elena painted him out to be, if he is willing to stick with his bullheaded younger brother and try to put him on the path of redemption.

Caroline is no fool; she knows full well Klaus will never become someone's guardian angel or a white saint. But she knows that he can be better than who he is now and she'd never want him to change himself into a morphed being of living falsehood. She knows that her hatred for him lives - not only from his manic killing sprees and rash judgement - but because she can rationalize every damn decision he makes and how every choice Klaus had ever made, has made so much sense to her in return.

Perhaps that is her greatest folly, she ponders, that she is able to understand the dark hybrid's mind. And why should she not? She is, after all, his guiding light.

* * *

Somewhere, in the amber tinted evening of a New Orleans night, the Original hybrid adds a touch of golden yellow to his painting, allowing the woman's curls to shine without sun. He makes sure the cornflower blue of her eyes sparkle with an innate glow. He wants to see it all on the canvas - beauty, strength, and light.

"Niklaus, brother," Elijah calls from downstairs, "you are needed."

Klaus uncaps the burnt sienna, mixing it in with a lemon yellow hue. "In a moment, Elijah."

"Camille wishes to see you."

"Then I'm very busy."

A pause.

"What shall I tell her then, brother?"

"Tell her," Klaus says, his brush gently stroking the canvas with the utmost tenderness, "that I am looking at my salvation."

* * *

**Klaus/Caroline drabble. Set somewhere after 500 Years of Solitude. **

**A review a day makes an author smile :) **


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